A user has access to a variety of online activities that are accessible over a network. For example, the user may play an online game, in which, the user interacts with a number of other users over a network. For instance, a plurality of users may each access an online poker game to play cards against each other, participate in an online sports game in which each of a plurality of users are members of the same team, and so on. Because the online activity is accessible via a network, the users may access the online activity from a wide variety of geographical locations, such as within a city, across a country, and even around the world.
Typical online activities that involve instant messaging, however, utilize static rosters such that participation in the activity is limited to those who were initially a part of the group that initiated the activity. Therefore, each participant was required to manually join the online activity before participation in the online activity was permitted for each of the users. Additionally, current online activities are typically performed by a single user or a group that is created on an ad hoc basis. Therefore, to participate in the online activity, each user is required to perform multiple steps, a result of which may be that no other users are even available to participate in the online activity. This may result in user frustration, even to the point that the users choose to forgo participation in the online activity. Thus, the online activity may be underutilized, which also results in lost business opportunities to a provider of the online activity.